


Plan C

by Ylevihs



Series: How Not to Fall [50]
Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén
Genre: M/M, Spoilers, headcanon heavy, inaccurate portrayals of brain damage, large liberties taken with how psychic damage might work, minor OCs - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:40:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23772451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ylevihs/pseuds/Ylevihs
Summary: Ain't it the worst when a plan comes together?
Relationships: Herald/Sidestep (Fallen Hero)
Series: How Not to Fall [50]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1327892
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	Plan C

The back half of what seemed to be a plea, followed by profanity. Followed by gibberish. Regina’s eyes stayed pinned to the ceiling, unblinking, as though they were the only things keeping it from falling in on her.

“—other one, but no. Not lucky enough. Lucky enough. Got lucky enough. Body was still there,” a high-pitched hysterical laugh ripped itself out of her lungs, tearing as it went, making her cough hard and ragged in between giggled shrieks. “There but not there. Not there where. No one came to get you,” a coin flipped and now she was sing song, broken nose playing shrill counter point. “No one but me. No one but me. Me, not you. You. Because I knew. I knew, wasn’t just you. Me. And it and you and we all wanted it. Not just you. The other one. God fucking damn it. So much time. It. But not you. Should have been. Lucky, lucky, lucky. Four, Oh, Three, Nine, Nineteen. H,” another half laugh. “Fucking G. G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P, still could use you. Should have done better. Should have. Have,” Regina struggled briefly against the restraints on her wrists. “Have they arrived yet?”

Her head nodded down, face scrunching up tight. But her eyes remained unfocused, darting and spiraling. “My face hurts,” her voice pitched itself over a low jump, heading downwards to quiet and trembling. “Why does my face hurt so much?” a single sob. And then, back to her earlier ranting. The pain in her face only enough to keep her lucid for moments at a time—something shiny that lost its appeal as soon as it was recognized.

“Couldn’t let. A mistake. Can’t make more mistakes. Assumed dead. Wished you were dead, didn’t you? Wish you were dead, don’t you? Aha. Not this time, not. Needed those. Needed to see. Needs not wants. Wants are what you don’t know you need. Which parts of you are you are me are it? Is there a you? Are you there?” the sudden shift back to clarity gripped around his throat. “Are you here? I can hear you, just like I always could. Screaming in the night. Impressive lungs. Impressive resilience. We didn’t give that to you, Four Zero Three Nine Nine Nine,”

Richard felt his stomach punch up against his lungs just as something began roaring between his temples. Wordless and deafening and venomously urging him to.

To.

There was no way out of this. No way to make it end well. But there was no way to go back now. They were all going to die, and it was all going to be his fault and it was all going to be for absolutely nothing. Icicles pierced out from his veins and froze his limbs solid. Pressure. Pressure on his—oh, Daniel was squeezing his hand. Just enough to get his attention back.

“She keeps doing that,” Daniel said with a quick glance upwards at Richard’s face. Fear, but not directed at him. It was a balm he couldn’t have deserved less. Not true. There were things he could have done. “Goes from rambling to coherent,” Richard felt a thumb begin stroking lightly over the back of his hand and tried to desperately to sink into it. Focus on the warmth and blinding light. Daniel’s thoughts zipped around him in familiar chaos, rising and sinking on their own warm updrafts. Everything was going to be okay. For a measure of everything. For a measure of okay.

He just didn’t want Richard to have to suffer anymore.

The thought made him snort. Good luck with that Lover Boy. But the poison wasn’t quite in it; his heart wasn’t quite in it. Richard blamed the exhaustion settling into his joints. Everything ached. He wasn’t looking forward to the nightmares he would have as soon as he did try to rest.

“You said Ricardo punched her?” groping out for anything that might help block out her words. Still just the semi-sane ramblings of an injured woman to Daniel. There was a bit too much that Richard could recognize if he took the time to sift through the muck. Chen was picking up on just a little bit more.

He hadn’t moved from his place by the door, watching the three of them from as far away as he could manage while still being in the room. Or. No. Guarding the door? And he nodded.

“She had started talking to him,” a slight shift in his weight, “Or about him, is more accurate,”

“About him?” Richard parroted, blinking the surprise back. It shouldn’t have surprised him, he knew. Regina’s fingers were in more pies than just his own.

Chen crossed his arms over his chest, chin dropping a bit, eyes firm on the ground. Narrowing to glare at the concrete. “Taunting him,” he finally corrected. “About how he failed to save you during Heartbreak,” and. Oh. Ah, beans. Richard didn’t want anything to do with the small coating of guilt on those words. Guilt, because if he hadn’t given in, then Ricardo wouldn’t have had to stop to save him.

“She also…she also said some of things I guess she told you about him. When you were in there,” Daniel continued for him. “That he had never really been your friend and had only ever been using you. That he was moving on, happy that you were…” he trailed into silence, unwilling to recount everything she’d said about Ricardo. Richard knew what she would have said anyway. “So, he punched her in the face,”

He felt something slipping over his skin. Faint. Body heat warm. Concern, radiating out like bomb had been dropped in Daniel’s chair.

“She talked about me for a little bit too,” A solid puncture of his heart, leaving him bleeding terror into his abdomen. “She–,”

“I don’t want to know what she said,” the words practically punched his teeth out in their speed out of his throat. Half aware that he was squeezing Daniel’s hand too hard and unable to stop himself. To his unending credit, Daniel didn’t so much as flinch with it.

“Alright,” but his thoughts were too loud to shut out. The edges of the wingtips were sharper than usual. She accused him of manipulating Daniel into loving him. That it wasn’t simply all of his lies that had been enough. That he’d gone in and twisted Daniel’s thoughts. Into believing that there was something about him worth comparing to human. Into believing that even though he had already broken him, that he should be forgiven. Because Daniel was too soft hearted and stupid and too willing to keep the faith that things would end well. That they could have a happily ever after if he just kept pushing for it.

There really was no way to end this the way he wanted. So much of his plans had revolved around him not surviving them. About forcing Ricardo and Daniel to mourn and move on. Lick their wounds and let time heal and fade the scars he’d leave behind on them. Letting them have ashes and meaningless incarcerations of millionaires for what? A few months at most. Maybe a year. It was hard to convince people to arrest the people who made sure you got your paychecks. Where would the next one come from after all? They were cruel plans. Plans designed to hurt them for ever caring about him. And then they’d had to be scrapped because he was too self-sabotaging to keep them secret.

And what he’d come up to replace them had never involved seeing her again. Never involved so much as an acknowledgment of her name. Her face. Only the things she and her people had done to him. Were doing to others. Hopefully convincing enough people that those things were wrong. Hard to be convincing when one was a murderer. When one was a torturer himself.

But that fruit had been too ripe to resist plucking it. She deserved whatever was going on in her mind right now. Deserved it for no other reason than because it made him. Made him feel.

Warm inside wasn’t quite right, because the surging tide of bitter, freezing nausea was still strong and ever present. 

Made him feel, finally, like he deserved the way he felt about himself.

Hopefully what Miss Ochoa would find on that computer—what she could write with that information—would be enough to convince some people. People who weren’t already involved and people willing to switch sides to save face. If she was brave enough. He couldn’t offer her protection any more than he could actually protect himself. Protect the people he cared about. All he could do was throw her into the line of fire and hope that they kept shooting at him instead.

Regina, apparently aware that she was being ignored, screamed.

Or tried to, at least. Halfway through, her voice caught in the back of her throat, sending her coughing and sputtering, fresh blood from her nose trickling down her face.

“Where am I?” she managed, in between broken sounds from her chest. Followed by a strangled and pitiful, “It’s so dark. I hate. Hate the. The layout, all wrong. It’s all wrong. It’s all going going gone wrong, going wrong, how did he even? Two lefts make a right make a wrong. Why are they all coming out left-handed?” and a knocking at the door. “The light is on,” Regina’s thoughts were coming unstuck again and set out to drift. “Need versus wanting to need,”

Chen turned to look through the small window and unlocked the door, letting Ricardo back in. His eyes settled on Richard, making him want to both squirm and heave out a tired sigh. There wasn’t judgment in the look. Mild worry tempered by the anger still bubbling away just beneath his surface.

“Hey,” was all he offered before looking back at the body in the bed with open revulsion. “So. What now?” words tight and sticking between his ribs.

Regina made a cooing sound. “No, not yet. The system will,”

And wasn’t that the question of the fucking century? Richard bit the bullet and felt it crack his teeth. The hand not being held by Daniel clenched hard enough to send his fingernails slicing into his palm. The slight pain helped anchor him down.

“I don’t know. Lady Argent was on her way back with the regene, I think. She was certainly winning when I left the scene. But soon either the Special Directive is going to show up and kill everyone in here. And I don’t know how to deal with siege warfare. Especially if,”

“If?” Ricardo paced over, glaring sharpened daggers at Regina, who was still muttering her part of a one-sided conversation. His shoulders were up to his ears, tense and tight. His face was grim. It didn’t take a psychic to see the pent-up aggression barely contained in the way he grabbed the other chair and flung himself down into it. It almost hid the way he winced at his cracking knees.

“If this place will get an order to go on lockdown, while they try to sweep it from the inside out,” Chen interrupted and explained, and Richard felt a sick twist at his fears being confirmed. He barely managed to look up and hold Chen’s gaze; it was equally unsettled. “I thought Carmichael’s name sounded familiar. She’s a strong advocate for the Rangers. Always argues in favor of us when it comes to funding and supplies from the government,”

“And I bet her husband makes sizeable donations?” Ricardo spat out. Every muscle was tensed, as though he was ready for the walls to fall in at any second. Richard couldn’t blame him.

“Anonymously, but,” and Chen nodded grimly. “It doesn’t take a genius to track the money. Or the supplies,” ah yes, because didn’t they just have the funnest toys nowadays here at Rangers’ HQ? And that wasn’t even counting the vault. That could come in handy if it was the SD that arrived first. Could spell disaster if it was HQ that attacked.

“We do need them,” Regina interrupted loudly. “Needs versus wants. Want it. No, not unless. Not until it needs it. Really needs it to stop. Can’t damage it too much. Car with no wheels. Have to. We’ve been waiting, long enough. How long was too long to wait until we put you to sleep?” and Richard swallowed down a bulb of vomit. She’d asked that question, or a version of it, too many times of him. Exit interviews after his torture sessions. How long do you think you can hold out next time before we have to sedate you?

“Wait. What? Why from inside?” Daniel blinked his attention away from Regina and gave Richard’s hand another soft rub with his thumb, using it to pull himself up and begin floating a few inches off the chair. A nervous habit, that. Cutting the tethers and letting gravity fall off of him. The question was not fully out of confusion. Daniel was already putting the ample amount of evidence together; he just hated the picture it was painting. That the Rangers were just as deep in the pocket of corrupt, war mongering Senators as the Farm was made his skin crawl and something surprisingly loud inside of him cry out.

They were the good guys after all. They were heroes. There was no way they were on the same level as. As. And surely there weren’t enough people under the Senator’s thumb? The people he worked with here were his friends. At least he was friendly with them. Chatted over coffee and the weather and about their kids’ soccer games. Those people wouldn’t just turn around and try to kill him because of an order. The Special Directive didn’t have a choice—but the people here did. And they would choose right. 

“Because once Senator Carmichael gets word that we’ve taken her lead scientist and contact for the Farm, she’s going to send the order down to have us eliminated. And because it’s her husband not signing the millions of dollars’ worth of funding checks, they’re going to ask how high to jump. And how many bodies they need to make it believable. It won’t have their names on it, and when they run the story to the press, it will be me—Mad Dog—who attacked and killed you, dying in the process,” Richard couldn’t help the bored bitterness in his voice. “That will still be story they use if the Special Directive gets here first, too, except they’ll call the SD a saving grace. A terrible loss, what with Herald and Charge getting caught in the fray. But accidents do happen,”

“But people here know that you don’t–,” kill people, Daniel wanted to protest.

Richard couldn’t stop the snort. “As if that matters. A villain goes on a rampage, Mad Dog finally loses it and goes on a killing spree. It fits in perfectly fine with the narrative they need…I don’t know if they’re sure about you yet, Chen, or how you fit in, though,” Richard finished, entirely aware that Chen himself wasn’t too far down the chain of command. If they didn’t think he was involved in the whole affair, he might get the order to kill Mad Dog and then get taken out himself once the job was done.

“They may kill me for convenience sake. To keep the story straight,” showing that his train of thought was running down the same railway as Richard’s. Daniel’s thoughts spun sickly and settled uneasily, ready to take off at any second. Cynicism made for an unsteady weight on his shoulders. Still unwilling to believe that the faces he saw and smiled with every day might turn on him without a second thought. Wanting to believe in the basic decency of humanity over the hard and demonstrated seduction of human greed.

“But that only happens once the Senator knows we have Regina here,” Ricardo said, biting down on his lower lip. He enjoyed being trapped even less than Richard did. Waiting for an attack he couldn’t see coming from enemies he couldn’t safely identify. And with no where to run to off of the sinking ship except out into the ocean. “It will probably be the directive,” cracking his neck and sending a back of the throat whine of electricity peal through the air. Just enough to be felt by the hairs on the back of Richard’s neck. 

“Probably,” Richard agreed. “The regene Argent was fighting knew when you flew off with her. I think she had some sort of tracker in her clothes,” a pause “or it’s implanted in her,” glancing down at Regina, who was now discussing something to do with RNA sequencing, mixed with what sounded like a pizza order.

“Then.” Chen took a heavy step forward, face twisted inward in thought. Mouth paused halfway parted. “Is there any way we can jam the signal to keep any orders from arriving here? If we can keep the orders from getting through, I can have our people–,”

“No.” Richard felt heat rush up to his head. Hadn’t anyone been listening to him? “When I said the SD will kill everyone, I don’t just mean the four of us. I mean every single person they come across in the building. It will be indiscriminate. I remember hearing about jobs where they swept through, killed everyone in sight, and then left explosives, blaming the building collapse for the deaths instead. They could very, very easily do that here,”

“Then do you have any better plans?” not quite angry, but certainly accusatory.

“I do,” Richard rubbed his fingers into the grip Daniel had on him. And winced hard, hating every syllable out of his mouth. “I don’t…I don’t think they’ll be able to undo the damage I’ve done to her. I don’t think I could, either. Which means if we let her go back to the Farm, she won’t be a threat. And if we can get a hold of the regene Lady Argent was fighting, I think I can get her to make sure the Special Directive doesn’t attack, by letting her have Regina,” which would keep the people in HQ safe. Would keep Daniel and Ricardo safe for at least a few more hours. And the next, painfully obvious, part came to him like a knife to the throat. It would be risky as hell. It would be horrible to do. “And then all I would need to ask is for you all to make sure my body doesn’t get damaged,” looking first at Chen. And then to Ricardo. And then. God. Okay. Daniel held his gaze evenly. “While I try to slip into the Farm inside Regina’s head,”


End file.
